A Taxonomy of Cyber Attacks on 3G Networks

Abstract

Early first and second generation (1G and 2G, respectively) wireless telecommunication networks were isolated in the sense that their signaling and control infrastructure was not directly accessible to end subscribers. The vision of the next generation 3G wireless telecommunication network is to use IP technologies for control and transport. The introduction of IP technologies has opened up a new generation of IP-based services that must interwork with traditional 3G wireless telecommunication networks. Cross Network Services will use a combination of Internet-based data and data from the wireless telecommunication network to provide services to the wireless subscriber. They will be multi-vendor, multi-domain, and will cater to a wide variety of needs. An example of such a Cross Network Service is the Email Based Call Forwarding Service (CFS), where the status of the subscriber’s email inbox is used to trigger call forwarding in the wireless telecommunication network.